Outside: Grass touch place

Locales abroad of the city centers, from out of doors to the outer planes.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Hunting Lodge]

"Nice!" Hiep sits up a bit. "So I won't have to play messenger. For now, at least. It probably is better if you speak to them yourself. But if you do need a messenger at some point, I'm your gal. I don't think your cultists believed me when I said I can talk to you. They're in for a surprise."

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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[A Rooster's Flight]

Hey, now. If someone looks like a common tavern wench, walks like a common tavern wench and whines incessantly like a common tavern wench, why would a bird presume she's anything else?

Luckily for Zee, the rooster already had its head close to the ground, if she'd had to drag its head all the way down by force, she might've not gotten the opportunity to test her chicken hypnotizing skills! Another stroke of luck for her is that it's rare for the beast to be attacked by something of its own size, especially out of the blue. You'd be surprised too if a castle-sized tree-dragon-deer-thing appeared on an open field.

The rooster's neck feather settle down for a moment as it stares at the furrow on the ground. Its legs relax and its tail slumps down. This gives Yezekiel ample time to ask her question. A less savvy person might even mistake the rooster's motionlessness as it considering hee words.

But, this kind of immobility is but a ruse - evolved into the rooster's distant ancestor to, perhaps, fool a predator or a rival into easing up prematurely. It's not unconscious at any point, nor willing to suffer this indignity for any longer than it has to. So, when nearly exactly eighteen seconds have passed, it springs to life, furiously pulling its head back and flapping its wings with the same force it used to toss dirt and rocks around when emerging from the depths of earth. If it just can, it will peck Yezekiel's root-hoof-claw things in revenge, each blow like an artillery shell falling on the ground.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Maids on a Train
"No, math works whether you know it or not. No matter what, two plus two will always equal four. Not knowing the words to describe it doesn't make it not true." Jade is getting frustrated with this. "Magic though... Saying blahblahblah and wiggling your fingers might create a fireball. If you believe enough and the stars are right or whatever. It's inconsistent."

Hunting Lodge
"Maybe don't be too public about that," Sekhmet cautions. "I, uh, don't want them learning where to find me and my family." She doesn't want her peaceful life disturbed by cultists asking for favors.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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bc56 wrote: May 13, 2023 3:36 pm Maids on a Train
"No, math works whether you know it or not. No matter what, two plus two will always equal four. Not knowing the words to describe it doesn't make it not true." Jade is getting frustrated with this. "Magic though... Saying blahblahblah and wiggling your fingers might create a fireball. If you believe enough and the stars are right or whatever. It's inconsistent."
[[b/]Maids on a Train[/b]]

The mermaid nods. "I know, right? Two plus two equals four unless you're, like, doing rounding error stuff where it can equal three or five depending on where you got those twos from, or counting in, like, trinary or something. Then it equals, I dunno, eleven or something?" she says. "But why even count in trinary in the first place? Just because some dumb mathematician wiggled his fingers and said now we have to count in threes, and then, poof! It doesn't actually mean anything anymore."

The mermaid nods some more, even faster.
She really feels like Jade and her understand each other, and they're connecting on this point. The two plus two analogy was definitely the best for showing how magic and math are similar; the mermaid was trying to come up with some complicated nonsense math thing that has no real-world applications, but sometimes simpler is better.

The mermaid's evaluation of Jade's knowledge of both math and magic goes up for coming up with such an apt metaphor. "I think you actually understand magic better than you're saying you do," she comments. Her sentence is interrupted, however, by the train's intercom announcing that they will approach the next stop soon, so everyone should ensure they are seated as the train will slow down soon.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Maids on a Train
Jade, still in fox-shape, hops up on the seat, glowering. She's pointing out how math and magic are different. "No, it's not magically changed by a mathematician wiggling his fingers. 4 in decimal and 11 in trinary aren't different numbers, they're different ways of writing the same number. The actual essence of math exists irrespective of our writing systems and numeral bases."
This isn't working. If the mermaid wants to convince Jade to respect magic, she might have to use a different approach.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[A Rooster's Flight]

Maybe it was foolish to expect anything else.

Maybe it was foolish to expect anything approaching empathy or even well reasoned self-preservation from a creature who's pride burns within his breast like an inferno in a coal mine. A toxic, smoggy flame that devours and and knows nothing else.

Well.

Often such creatures respect power.

Very well. She is Yezekiel. The Mighty Prevail. The Mighty are Resolute.

The Mighty Strengthen.

As the great bird shakes off the temporary paralysis and beats his wings the seraph releases her grip and speaks her power into reality.

Matter.
Shape.
Will.

"BE INDOMITABLE."


The world roils around the empyrean, the earth and sky wavering like a pond disturbed by a stone.

Peck after peck descend upon her claw like artillery shells and strike true, ringing across the rolling hills like thunderclaps. And with each blow the rooster will likely find the force of the impact reverberating through his skull as though he had struck something utterly immovable. If any harm was caused to the seraph it isn't at all apparent.

Rising now on her hind legs the celestial seems to grow, six burning wings spreading wide until they seem to blot out the whole horizon with golden light and eyes blacker than night. The very air and soil begin to congeal nearby, as if blasted into silvery glass bleeding starlight by the heat of her presence. Falsehood is burned away in the presence of the Searing Light of Truth.

"Do you yield?"
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Hunting Lodge]

"Yeah, I get it." Hiep nods. "You want a layer of separation, without them getting up in your business. That means dream visions or intermediaries. I've worked with plenty of gods, I know the drill. Hopefully Silent Feathers Drifting takes some of them off your hands but there will probably be more in the future."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[A Rooster's Flight]

When the rooster feels the seraph's hold slip, it jumps and hops backwards. Wings half spread, it once again bristles its necks feathers and screeches at the creature before it. "Yield? Yield??? I will yield when the last human is ash! When my crow heralds the very last dawn, when the Sun will becomes swollen and red and swallows the earth!"

In the searing light, its crimson crest and golden mane erupt with real flame. The black feathers on its back seem to melt away and begin to drift on the surface of a fiery core like spots of the Sun. The glassed terrain turns into liquid and begins flowing arounds its legs like a river. "Whoever are you stand on the way of my path and purpose? Begone!

Whatever force begot this creature and cursed the world with it, must've been powerful indeed. More than just the spirit of some proud creature burning from within, it is an embodiment of destructive fire. Its defiant cry is heavy with prophecy. In some sense, it belongs here, to detriment of everybody, and stubbornly refuses to be excised.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Shadowcaller wrote: May 10, 2023 9:29 am[Well Training]

"Their whole adult lives perhaps. People usually at least get out of childhood." Ambrosia corrects herself as Thariza points this out.
Then she looks to Emily again. "Ah, as you no doubt know, Emily, the world is fickle. While I hope to give you that sort of experience, I cannot guarantee anything. But think of it like this, while we can't control what happens we can control our reactions to it and what's 'interesting' is in the eye of the beholder isn't it? What I had in mind though was once we had our tea Thariza and you should have another duel of sort. Does that sound good to you? I find rematches more useful for training purposes as it shows how much you've learned of one another."
Morty wrote: May 10, 2023 6:47 pm[Well Training]

"My life was all you'd expect from an Iron Legion soldier... until it wasn't." Thariza shrugs. "I wouldn't mind a rematch, for sure. I know what to expect now."
[Well Training]

"Some more sparring? Sure, I'd be up for that," she looks at Thariza, "Though, if you think you've seen all my tricks, you've got another thing coming."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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bc56 wrote: May 14, 2023 3:00 am Maids on a Train
Jade, still in fox-shape, hops up on the seat, glowering. She's pointing out how math and magic are different. "No, it's not magically changed by a mathematician wiggling his fingers. 4 in decimal and 11 in trinary aren't different numbers, they're different ways of writing the same number. The actual essence of math exists irrespective of our writing systems and numeral bases."
This isn't working. If the mermaid wants to convince Jade to respect magic, she might have to use a different approach.

[Maids on a Train]

Unfortunately, since the mermaid can't actually do magic, she has little motivation to actually respect magic, let alone convince someone else to respect it too. "Like, something that exists without regard to reality doesn't sound like something that always matches reality, tee-bee-aitch," she says instead.

The mermaid shrugs.

And the train starts braking.

"...Oh!" she suddenly exclaims. "Maybe I could try that."
The mermaid fishes out the feather duster again. She holds it up with her arm extended, then says, "Moon prism power, make up! Give me legs!"
She opens up her hand.
The feather duster falls.

...

...

She looks a little ridiculous just holding that pose.
Suddenly, though! Her headband glows a little, with the last of its transformative magical energy, and . . . her outfit changes color. Turns mostly black, with dark red bows and stuff. Her headband turns into little darkred half-bat hairpieces. And two of her teeth are slightly pointier.

No legs, though.
The mermaid sighs, looking slightly disappointed.
She looks over at Jade the fox again.
"Hey, maybe you should try it. I mean, you can actually do magic so maybe it'll work for you."
And! Unlike the mermaid's who just used the last of hers for a ridiculous palate swap, Jade's headband has just a little maid-themed transformative magic left in it, so maybe she could actually do something interesting with the last of that magic power.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Hunting Lodge
"Right. If I do need your services, how should I contact you?" Sekhmet asks. She doesn't expect to ever do it, but for the sake of appearances she has to at least ask.

Maids on a Train
"Base systems aren't reality," Jade sounds exasperated, "Math is the reality, Base systems are our way of categorizing it."
Then the mermaid does... Something. And then asks Jade to try.
"Did you just make yourself a vampire?
...
Fine."

Jade changes back to her humanoid shape so she has hands to manipulate the feather duster. "Blah blah magic words! Give her legs!" She points it at the mermaid. Best case scenario, it works, although Jade doubts it will. Worst case, it does something unpleasant and unpredictable to Jade, but she doubts it will do that either. She expects nothing to happen.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[A Rooster's Flight]

Prophecy?

Prophecy requires sovereignty to have any true weight. It isn't merely predicting the future; it is dictating the future.

And there is precious little sovereignty here.

"Your path is nowhere. Your purpose is purposelessness," the seraph retorts as the darkness of her gaze grows impossibly deeper, ringed in dying light. "You appeal to a future that will never be because you mistake a symbol for reality."

Gripping empty space over her chest, the seraph draws forth something like a sword, the blade of self turned inward. The fury of a star blazing bright. The fury of a Will indomitable. A rush of mighty wind fills the valley as air begins pouring into the weapon, crushed into heavier atoms as the blade begins weeping molten iron and shedding searing light.

Everything nearby that wasn't on fire already sure is now.

"Also you're a jerk."


The exchange begins with a thrust of the blade. Not merely hot. Not merely sharp. Not even merely a fusion furnace devouring mass to birth radiance. It is the drive embodied in every living thing that is or was or ever will be forged into a tool with a singular purpose.

The purpose Prevailing.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Clutching Pearls]

Vargain shuffles up the hill next to Lapis, bent slightly forward, seemingly having some difficulty of his own yet never quite slowing. His stave appears to be a great help.

"Goodness? You make me wish to believe it. Truth? Undoubtedly. Beauty, though? Justice?" Vargain wonders at it as they mount the top of the hill and look upon the strange feyish grove. "More nuanced. Subjective, my darling. All subjective. I've known men who hacked off children's hands for stealing. I've known men who found burning buildings beautiful..."

"Tell me, Lapis, what do you think about people?"

[Hog Heaven]

"This is a bokken. It's made of wood. It's got no edge," Tsumi turns it over and over as if to show Dena. "You must be more fragile than I thought."

"Don't know if I got any band-aids," Tsumi muses. "Never have much use for 'em. But I got about a hundred of these," she says, and in one smooth move peels out of her tanktop, leaving her in a sports bra and little else. The woman is... built like the cover of a fitness magazine. Jacked. Tone. Cut. She rips a couple of strips out of the shirt for Dena with minimal effort. "Here," she offers them. "At least staunch it. I can stitch that rip, but it'll be worse if you get blood all over those nice pants of yours." She grins. "Pants like that, you wanna hold on to."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Hunting Lodge]

"There's a minor goddes of wind who lives near Inside." Hiep answers quickly; it seems she's got a plan ready. "Her name is Fiassi. Leave a letter for me with a small offering at her shrine and she'll deliver it to me. If she can't find me she'll just leave it in my home. The offering should be something sweet and tasty."
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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bc56 wrote: May 15, 2023 1:57 amMaids on a Train
"Base systems aren't reality," Jade sounds exasperated, "Math is the reality, Base systems are our way of categorizing it."
Then the mermaid does... Something. And then asks Jade to try.
"Did you just make yourself a vampire?
...
Fine."

Jade changes back to her humanoid shape so she has hands to manipulate the feather duster. "Blah blah magic words! Give her legs!" She points it at the mermaid. Best case scenario, it works, although Jade doubts it will. Worst case, it does something unpleasant and unpredictable to Jade, but she doubts it will do that either. She expects nothing to happen.


[Maids on a Train]

The mermaid, of course, doesn't think 'math is the reality' sounds right. Math's just a way to describe reality, she thinks. Saying that feels an awful lot like claiming things are made out of words.
Sadly, the mermaid doesn't get the chance to say her thoughts because she's too busy being distracted by vampirism. "Huh," she says, as she feels her teeth with her tongue. "That's neat." But it's a little hard to pronounce some letters while her tongue is pressed against a tooth.

Suddenly, the mermaid looks up above Jade's head. "Oh, you're doing something!" she says, pointing at something up there. A greek letter, phi, appeared above Jade's head, except it's turned sideways, made of fire, and has a halo-like glow to it.
And then, the accessories and stitching in Jade's maid outfit changes to become literally fire (except it somehow doesn't burn the rest of the cloth, and it somehow still holds the cloth together like thread normally does).

Jade gains one (1) fiery magic maid outfit!
It's not really clear what exactly it's for, though. It's definitely fireproof and heat resistant, of course, but Jade would have to experiment a little to learn that it's remarkably good at helping her cleaning things with cleansing fire whether that's through the red-hot hidden dagger, her flaming feather duster wand, or by supporting her when she uses fire magic to burn away things...which, looking back on it, she probably wouldn't like considering how much she hates magic and somehow hasn't been able to control magic like she would want.
The greek letter disappears.
"Wow, that was pretty cool."

At about the same time, however, something happens to the mermaid, too! And it'll be easier for Jade to notice than the mermaid, considering.
Above the mermaid's head, two little purple flames appear that form the outline of fox ears, burning up there. And behind the mermaid's back, a larger purple flame in the shape of a fox tail's outline appears.
It looks pretty, but - like the fiery magic maid outfit - it's not readily apparent if it actually does anything other than just look nice.

No legs, though.
Disappointing.

The train slows almost to a stop, and just moves slightly to align itself with the station platform.

Once the symbol and magical changes seem to have ended, the mermaid is intent on picking back up the conversation where they left off before she got distracted:
"Anyway, I dunno, but math itself sounds an awful lot like it's just a way to categorize reality, too," the mermaid says, deciding to continue the conversation from earlier and (badly) explaining the thoughts she had from earlier (because she forgot all the examples and things she was going to use to support her point).
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[A Rooster's Flight]

It may be the will and drive of every living thing to prevail. But has it been written in the stars that they will? Yezekiel's sword splits the loathsome bird apart, a fiery wing separated from its bulk, a hole blown through its mass. In most contexts, it would be a fight-ending blow.

Then the monster begins reforming from the flames caused by that very sword's summoning. The great forces used to prevail are calling forth an equal and opposite force: spite. It is what keeps the rooster going: the desire to see all such valiant efforts become self-defeating. It screams and jumps forward, trying to strike whatever the seraph has for face with its spurs.

By now, the once beautiful green field has turned into a lake of molten glass. Trees in the distance begin to smolder and then burst into flames under the radiant light. The few bovines that did not make it behind the hills are cooked alive and then burned to the bone, but they do not stop running. Their scorched skeletons continue their mad flight away from the screaming rooster. Miles and miles away, refugees from the village of Welmet turn around and look in fear at the baleful glow in the horizon.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Hunting Lodge
"Good to know. I'll, uh, leave you to it..." Sekhmet retreats.
All that's left for her to do is prepare her dream message and wait for tonight. Unless Feathers sees fit to help, or some other interruption occurs, the time will pass uneventfully for her.

Maids on a Train
Jade can't see her new halo, but she can see the change in her already-changed clothes, and in the feather duster in her hand. She knew about the hidden dagger (strapped to her garter) but doesn't think that it might have changed. "See? This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about." She looks at the duster. It's easier for her to examine closely than the stitching of her dress, or her other flaming accessories, her apron, headband, and heels. Is it hot? If it's not hot, does it burn her to touch it?
She also sees the purple flames hovering over the mermaid. "You've got something here," she motions at her head, where her own flesh and blood fox ears are, "and back here," she makes a similar motion at her tails. She sighs at the attempt to revise the conversation. "It's too fundamental. It's literally impossible to conceive of a world without math. And it's consistent. Not like magic. If I point the feather duster at you and shout," as she describes it she points the duster and continues, "Blah blah magic words! Give her legs!" repeating the same gesture and "incantation" from before, "It won't do anything." Or maybe it will and Jade will be made to look like a fool.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Hunting Lodge]

Silent Feathers Drifting does send an elf to request Sekhmet's presence again, as it happens. He seems to believe it's a good idea for her to give the speech to him first, before addressing her cultists.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[A Rooster's Flight]

Is it written in the stars?

In a word, yes. The stars are empyreans. The stars are signs. The stars utter forth speech yet without words. Yezekiel is not a star, but rather a star is her. All the heavenly host are the hosts of heaven; lights in the night burning through the firmament from the Empyrean beyond.

And there, see?

The thing of destructive flame reconstitutes itself from the fire. Life from death, is it?

The bird's spurs scrape across the seraph's face in a shower of blazing sparks, skittering over bark and scales. This causes no injury. Because empyreans are, at their heart, simple creatures. They aren't made of parts that can be disorganized to cause them to cease to function. They are singular and whole. They simply are. A brute fact of reality. But they can be harmed. Yezekiel is diminished in some almost imperceptible way by the assault, but her own dictum to be indomitable holds.

It can really pay to buff yourself up before a fight!

Now comes the time when the thing which makes the empyreans truly dangerous becomes known. The impossible, the incorrect, the magical, these things they will not abide. Devourers of hopes and dreams, they sear out the soul and the purpose and replace it with their own impetus and Path. The living things consumed by the seraph's presence are flooded with her until they overflow with nothing else.

Will that snuff out the flames of spite in the skeletal cows until they're nothing but extensions of Yezekiel's own burning Will? Will that erode the purpose of the rooster until it submits?

Or will the seraph's own terrible swift sword already swelling fat and red with fusing helium cleave the spirit of the rooster in twain?
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[A Rooster's Flight]

By now, there is very little anything that could be called solid left of the rooster. Nothing, to be exact. It is just a flickering flame, any effect it has on the material world a byproduct of sheer heat. Yezekiel's sword splits the phantasm in half again, and for a moment, it seems to be gone, only to reform as two smaller roosters a moment later. Sometimes, it comes back as three. Other times, it doesn't even form into a full bird, just a whirlwind of beaks and wings in the inferno.

It stubbornly refuses to die out, as if something is flowing in from the outside to maintain it, like a wind stoking embers of a bonfire. But the perimeter of destruction ceases to crow. At a point, Yezekiel might be able to tell the only thing keeping the fire going is her own power. She has gained almost the full attention of the rooster, it keeps on existing to spite her.

If she stops, it will be gone, and the world a bit safer for it. At least for a while.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Hunting Lodge
Sekhmet arrives at the grove shortly after receiving the message.
"You, uh, wanted to see me? Uh, hear the message I want to send?" She's nervous. Of course she is. She's not trained in public speaking and she has to appear as a goddess in front of strangers, a daunting task for anyone.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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bc56 wrote: May 15, 2023 10:33 pm Maids on a Train
Jade can't see her new halo, but she can see the change in her already-changed clothes, and in the feather duster in her hand. She knew about the hidden dagger (strapped to her garter) but doesn't think that it might have changed. "See? This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about." She looks at the duster. It's easier for her to examine closely than the stitching of her dress, or her other flaming accessories, her apron, headband, and heels. Is it hot? If it's not hot, does it burn her to touch it?
She also sees the purple flames hovering over the mermaid. "You've got something here," she motions at her head, where her own flesh and blood fox ears are, "and back here," she makes a similar motion at her tails. She sighs at the attempt to revise the conversation. "It's too fundamental. It's literally impossible to conceive of a world without math. And it's consistent. Not like magic. If I point the feather duster at you and shout," as she describes it she points the duster and continues, "Blah blah magic words! Give her legs!" repeating the same gesture and "incantation" from before, "It won't do anything." Or maybe it will and Jade will be made to look like a fool.

[Maids on a train]

Some people get off the train, including all the passive maids.
The mermaid glances outside, and decides it looks like a boring stop. Not really the one she wants.

"While I think your outfit looks nice and I'm really jealous of how it looks," the mermaid-who-may?-be-a-vampire says, "I don't think the 'on fire' look really works for me. Looks a lot cuter on you."

While the flames of the threads and the accessories feel hot, they definitely don't feel hot enough to burn. It's almost like they (including the feather flame duster) are made out of some material that looks and feels like fire, yet are still in the safe-to-touch range.
It's maddening, since it looks so much like fire, and yet it's...not. The flames can actually be touched and feel almost like warm silk, even as they still ick whatever they touch. There's not really any real materials that they could be made from.

Upon being prompted, the mermaid feels up above her head..."Oh, wow, that's warm," she says. She looks over at the window to try to spot her reflection. "Oh! Purple." And she twists to get a look at the flame 'tail' she has...and then wiggles her hips to see if she can wag the tail.
She finds it pretty mesmerizing.

Frustratingly, Jade is incorrect that her magic 'incantation' won't do anything. In fact, it very much does something!
However, she'll probably still feel a little vindicated in that it doesn't do anything consistent with what it did last time. No clothing transformations, no purple flames, no descending greek letters, nothing as fantastic as that (though most of this can be explained away as 'the headband is out of maid-transformation magic).
Instead, the magic wand just shoots out a wimpy little fireball.

It looks a little ridiculous.
Barely the size of a snowball and with strength as halfhearted as Jade's attempt to actually do magic, the fireball launches out, arcs downwards, starts fizzling away midair, and then splats against the armrest like a wet snowball, except made of fire.
"Pffft,"
The mermaid laughs.
"At the very least," she says, "that was fun comedic timing."
She wiggles her hips a bit more to get the flame tail wiggling a little more. "If you told me you made that fireball on purpose as a joke, I would believe you."

The train doors close.
And the train starts to pick up speed again, towards its next stop.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Hunting Lodge]

The old fey receives her in his sanctum, as before. Dressed in much the same ways as well and inviting her to sit on the cushions.

"Yes. It might be best if I hear it first, then give you pointers. Let you hear your own speech here first, before presenting it to your people."

Sekhmet's timidity and clear lack of experience with public speaking will need some work, after all.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Hraithre wrote: May 16, 2023 5:49 pm [A Rooster's Flight]

By now, there is very little anything that could be called solid left of the rooster. Nothing, to be exact. It is just a flickering flame, any effect it has on the material world a byproduct of sheer heat. Yezekiel's sword splits the phantasm in half again, and for a moment, it seems to be gone, only to reform as two smaller roosters a moment later. Sometimes, it comes back as three. Other times, it doesn't even form into a full bird, just a whirlwind of beaks and wings in the inferno.

It stubbornly refuses to die out, as if something is flowing in from the outside to maintain it, like a wind stoking embers of a bonfire. But the perimeter of destruction ceases to grow. At a point, Yezekiel might be able to tell the only thing keeping the fire going is her own power. She has gained almost the full attention of the rooster, it keeps on existing to spite her.

If she stops, it will be gone, and the world a bit safer for it. At least for a while.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Rebonack wrote: May 12, 2023 7:07 pm [Tower of Oujet]

Laz just tears into those tentacles but they are, of course, a distraction. They exist for the sole purpose of keeping her occupied to prevent her from doing damage to parts of the squidbus that are actually important for it to continue to function. Like its head. Or the places where the tings attach to the body. If those got messed up then this thing would be in real trouble!

But no.

It's going to keep sprouting more of those awful snake-like chompy bits to continue biting at Laz. Sure they have a lot of trouble getting through her armor, but that really doesn't matter. So long as she's occupied they're doing their job.

This is, of course, when things get worse.

A large bloody boil bulges up out of the monster's impure flesh in Laz' proximity, rapidly growing larger until it explodes violently. This of course sprays boiling blood chalk full of corrupt chaos magic everywhere like some sort of eldritch bomb.

Meanwhile!

Anika savages some more zombies!

About the time this is happening something ELSE important happens.

Remember that little circle symbol on the controls for the giant magical death laser?

It's filled up and now it's making a quiet but rather insistent beeping noise, causing the big red SHOOT! button to begin flashing. Will Anika manage to see through the haze of battle and realize that there's a nice big tempting button to push?

Stay tuned!
Halae wrote: May 14, 2023 5:18 pm [Well Training]

"Some more sparring? Sure, I'd be up for that," she looks at Thariza, "Though, if you think you've seen all my tricks, you've got another thing coming."
Murkus wrote: May 15, 2023 8:39 am [Hog Heaven]

"This is a bokken. It's made of wood. It's got no edge," Tsumi turns it over and over as if to show Dena. "You must be more fragile than I thought."

"Don't know if I got any band-aids," Tsumi muses. "Never have much use for 'em. But I got about a hundred of these," she says, and in one smooth move peels out of her tanktop, leaving her in a sports bra and little else. The woman is... built like the cover of a fitness magazine. Jacked. Tone. Cut. She rips a couple of strips out of the shirt for Dena with minimal effort. "Here," she offers them. "At least staunch it. I can stitch that rip, but it'll be worse if you get blood all over those nice pants of yours." She grins. "Pants like that, you wanna hold on to."
Morty wrote: May 10, 2023 6:47 pm [Riverside Moonwell]

Why that little- Hiep only caught a glimpse of the attackers before their so-called leader obscured her vision. So, only one thing left to do. She charges towards them and tries to headbutt one of them with great force - the goblin creature still attached to her face.

[Well Training]

"My life was all you'd expect from an Iron Legion soldier... until it wasn't." Thariza shrugs. "I wouldn't mind a rematch, for sure. I know what to expect now."
[Tower of Oujet]

Anika has been in the heat of battle many times and if she'd grade these particular zombies she wouldn't even give them a passing grade. Since it was just like every zombie fight she had ever had. She barely needed to pay attention to it at all!
Thus when there's lights (Anika loved lights) glowing her attention is immediately turned to them.

And it was an instinct that had never failed her so far.

Either it was something she had to stop or it was something she really digged.
Like in this case, a Big Glowing Button.

Anika's instinct was to press it but her experience told her to at least hesitate a moment considering what had happened the many other times she had pressed the Big Glowing Button.
Then memory caught up with her.
Right, that was DEATH CANNON!

Which means she had to push it, right?
With that in mind she runs up to the console and without even bothering to change into her humanoid form against she let's her big paw push that big button.
Fire away!
Or whatever it was supposed to do.

[Well Training]

"Then perhaps you can spar with me afterwards." Ambrosia smiles. "But now, tea." She kneels down to get out three cups which she places on the little table that she has sat up on the ground. "Would you do the honors, Thariza?" The scholar gestures to the tea pot.

[Hog Heaven]

Dena's paying more attention at the wound for the moment. "Bokken? I just call em' 'clubs' and they're not exactly harmless." Seemingly satisfied with her brief check-up she slowly stands up but doesn't move the leg otherwise. "Heck, this was probably the best outcome as far as injuries go, even if I'm pretty sure you hit an artery. Knew this one guy that always trained with clubs-" She would get more into that story when Tsumi gets out of her tank-top which makes her shut up and just accept the strips of clothing.

"...if you say so. But yikes, woman. You're beefier than Kir- a dude I know. Spends all his time in the gym yet you got him beat. What's your secret? Divine blessing? Fey pact? I gotta know." She kneels down to make a makeshift bandage with said strips, still occasionally glancing up at Tsumi.

[Riverside Moonwell]

The goblin never stops screaming as she uses him as a helmet. Probability just shutting up and let's fate take the reins on this one as no matter where she swings her head always seems to find another to connect with. No matter how blind to the world she seems to be.
But in the middle of a swing she can feel all momentum drain away from her and how the goblin let's go of her head and is launched up into the air like from a catapult.

"You can't deny it from us forever...." He shouts while flying through the canopy into parts unknown.

And with the depature of their leader, the rest of the surviving biometal creatures decides to retreat while they still had some order in their ranks.
This time they're leaving a number of corpses behind though. The once serene glade having turned into a battlefield filled with a strange oil-like blood which is leaking from the fallen creatures.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[A Rooster's Flight]

Honestly Zee is pretty glad that the area has stopped crowing. Or... was it ever doing that to begin with? Or was it growing? For whatever weird reason the wordline here is really fuzzy. Might have something to do with the DOOM CHICKEN damaging the surroundings. Anyway! If the heat generated from her being a seraph in general proximity to the rooster is what's keeping it semi-coherant then there's a pretty easy solution to that problem, right?

"Peace out!"

Seeing a giant celestial make a peace sign with one of her... hooves? Claws? Something before just shrinking out of existence is definitely a thing of some kind. She'll need to do some work here later. Turn this blasted crater into something nice. But for now she just needs to be absent until she's certain that the chicken has completely guttered out.

Oof...

Great big lake of boiling glass.

Gotta do something about that, right?

Applying a simple Matter invocation is probably the way to go. All this stuff is very hot and liquid! Well, just inform it that it's actually solid! And obviously solid glass must be MUCH cooler than liquid glass so that happens too. Easy! Reality politely and somewhat sheepishly rearranges itself to the specifications provided since clearly it must have gotten something wrong. Where once there was a field of green grass now there's a field of green glass instead.

That's pretty close, right?

No one will probably even notice the difference.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Well Training]

Thariza begins a process of painstakingly pouring the tea in the cups. She holds the teapot gingerly in her claws. It's clear she's practiced this.

[Riverside Moonwell]

"Well... they're gone. But they'll be back. And they left a mess." Hiep looks around herself at the scene of carnage.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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Hunting Lodge
"I, uh... Let me get changed." Sekhmet glances around for a place where she can have a moment of privacy. Sure, she's just going to be doing some minor shapeshifting and won't actually be indecent, but it still feels right to cover it up.
After stepping out and stepping back in, Sekhmet has gained a few feet of height and her clothes have both a more regal and a more demonic aspect. Her gown is composed of red flames, and she wears copious amounts of gold and diamond jewelry, glowing red-hot. "Okay." She takes a deep breath.
"I, uh... Uh..." Oops. She's suffering from significant stage fright, and this is just a rehearsal.

Maids on a Train
"Stupid impossible magic nonsense," Jade grumbles. "No, I didn't do it. Which just proves my point. Magic is fickle, unreliable, and can't be verified by experiment. It's no use." At least the mermaid seems to be enjoying the flame tail. Jade has no idea what it even is.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

Post by Halae »

[Well Training]

Tea has never been Emily's favorite drink - that'd have to be orange juice - but she does appreciate the clear skill Thariza has put into practice with it. She has her own claw problems at times. Once her tea has been poured, she raises the cup in quiet thanks, before taking a sip from it and feeling out the flavors. Emily has a fairly expansive palette as a result of cooking for so long, and while tea isn't her drink of choice, she can at least appreciate it.

But a spar is coming now, soon after the tea, and it's time for a bit of trash talk, "So, you think you've got my number now, huh? I'm afraid you haven't seen every trick I've got up my sleeve."
Halae#9979 on Discord if you need me. I'm forgetful, so don't be afraid to ping me asking me to get to posting.
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Re: Outside: Grass touch place

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[Well Training]

Ambrosia would have raised an eyebrow once she heard Emily say this but masks it by taking a sip of tea. Which was yet another reason as to why tea was a great social tool. Same as cigars, gave you an excuse to pause and think.
She wasn't familiar with this practice but Emily's tone still gives her intentions away. Since perhaps she was familiar with this after all. She had seen plenty of fighters taunting one another before a fight even if they were at friendly terms.

[Riverside Moonwell]

Anika shifts back to her (naked) humanoid form and survey's the battlefield, sticking out her tongue in disgust. "Ew. They're getting goop all over the glade. How am I supposed to clean all this up?" A beat as she turns to Hiep.
"You don't think these are... people, do you?" She gives one of the bodies a kick.
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